


a smile like flying

by wonderwheelzier



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: Fluff, Friends to Lovers, M/M, mentions of sonias abuse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-29
Updated: 2020-12-29
Packaged: 2021-03-10 22:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,496
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28414374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wonderwheelzier/pseuds/wonderwheelzier
Summary: glimpses through the years of bill encouraging eddie to take risks that are good for him, because bill knows and encourages eddies strengths! also them falling in love from elementary school through college
Relationships: Bill Denbrough/Eddie Kaspbrak
Comments: 8
Kudos: 12





	a smile like flying

Eddie clutches the chains at his sides, the cool metal slipping through his sweaty palms as the grounds whizzes by beneath him, back and forth, the wind ruffling his hair but doing nothing to loosen his grip on the swing. “Come on, Eddie! It’s f-f-fun, I puh-promise!” Eddie looks up at that voice. Some hidden part of him that’s not ready just yet to peek out knows he’ll always look to that voice, would crawl through the dark after it. And as he looks up, still steadily pumping his legs back and forth, the grating, rhythmic creaking of the swing set fades away. All he can focus on is the bright smile on his best friend's face. Bill’s only seven, but he’s fallen gracefully into his relatively new role of older brother to his baby brother Georgie, and it’s like he was meant to take care of people, to show them new things with his arms open like they are now as his blue eyes glitter up at Eddie. “Jump!” he says, his voice all encouragement and confidence that Eddie wants to curl into like a blanket. Eddie steels himself, taming the butterflies in his stomach. As he does, Bill says the thing that gets him to finally loosen his grip: “You c-can do it!”

He can do this. Bill just said so. The words lift him up, let him fly. And he really does for a moment. It’s scary when the ground comes rushing at him, but he’s laughing as the air rushes past him, knowing that, for a moment, his body had felt weightless. The wood chips scrape at his knees and palms as he lands, and it stings a little, but he  _ did _ it. 

Bill’s at his side in an instant, his smile blotting out the harsh light of the sun as his red curls hang in his face. “See? I knew you cuh-c-could! W-w-wasn’t it f-fun?”

Eddie takes Bill’s hand and lets him help Eddie sit up. It’s so different, the way Bill offers his hand to Eddie. There’s no tugging, no taking without asking. Bill smells like grass and air, and he looks like June, and there’s nothing Eddie loves more. For a moment he can leave the mothballs and stale perfume and antiseptic behind, all the screeches of “Eddie, you can’t do that!” fading away as his head swims with the echo of Bill’s voice telling him, “You can do it!” He smiles to himself as he gets up and dusts the dirt off his knees. He  _ did _ it.

  
  


Eddie clutches at the bottom hem of his shorts, his stomach swooping with his eyes as he tracks the movement of the ride zooming past him. He doesn’t know what it is about the cross sections of the metal, or the speed of the roller coaster cars that makes his heart race like this. It’s different than watching the trains; he can actually get on this one. He’s  _ supposed  _ to get on this one. He can fly and drop and come back up again, if he wants to. He told his mom Mr. Denbrough was taking them to the museum, and he briefly wonders if she’ll be able to smell the cotton candy on his fingers before Bill’s voice cuts through his worried thoughts. “Eddie, you coming?” he asks, hand outstretched. “This w-w-one’s my favorite!” 

The line is long, but nothing ever feels like waiting when he’s with Bill. Bill’s all smiles and red cheeks today, his auburn hair shining under the sun. Listening to Bill talk almost makes Eddie forget where they are. But then they’re at the front of the line, the swooping track in front of them, and Bill must see the fear in Eddie’s eyes, because he takes Eddie by the hand and tells him, “You can do it.” In that moment Eddie’s too preoccupied with processing the way Bill takes his hand without hesitation to be scared. Bill wasn’t afraid of anything—and he believes in Eddie. It makes Eddie feel better. It’s still scary, but Eddie climbs into the seat anyway, and the ride attendant pulls the bar down against Eddie’s chest, locking them in. Eddie’s heart starts racing at the unyielding sound of the lock, his breath feeling thin in the way he’s still getting used to reminding himself isn’t actually asthma. He grips the bars just as he gripped the chains of the swing so many years ago. But then Bill punches him lightly on the shoulder and gives him that soft yet confident grin, and Eddie thinks that maybe this fear is actually excitement. He still has trouble telling the difference.

The climb is the worst of it, but Bill cheers all the way through, and Eddie realizes he’s smiling even as expletive after expletive falls from his lips. 

And then the fall.

It feels like flying. Some distant part of him thinks of the playground, of the wood chips, but this is so much further, so much  _ better _ . It’s faster, and it just keeps going, the world spinning around him. He lets out a sound somewhere between a whoop and a laugh as his hair flies back. The wind rushes past him, cooling his sun-warmed cheeks. His feet dangle freely as they dip and curve, and then he’s upside down  _ holy fuck he’s upside down  _ and he  _ loves  _ it. 

His legs shake when he gets off, and Bill isn’t embarrassed to help hold him up for a moment as he stumbles. They’re on solid ground now, but Eddie can still feel that rush of wind pulling his cheeks back, and he can’t stop smiling. 

“How w-was it?” Bill asks with an excited, knowing smile.

Eddie beams up at him, wonder still in his eyes. “Can we go again?”

Bill laughs, and the sound of it feels just like Eddie felt when he was upside down for the first time. Dangling and rushing and safe and free all at once. “Let’s try the others, yeah?” The sun makes his skin sing as he and Bill stride across the park, under feats of engineering that leave Eddie almost as awestruck as Bill does. 

  
  


Eddie’s hand shakes as it hovers over his laptop’s mousepad, the cursor dangerously close to the button that decides his future for the next four years, and probably well beyond that. The button that, if pressed, will send him to New York City in a few months. A button his mother knows nothing about. 

He wants it,  _ god  _ he wants it so bad, but he can’t help but think of everything that could go wrong. Eddie’s done a lot of things in his life that younger versions of himself would never have thought possible, plenty of things his mother doesn’t know about, but the racing in his chest doesn’t feel fun right now. This feels downright reckless. This isn’t just a broken arm, this is his entire future on the line. This button will change his relationship with his mother forever.

Which he knows is also something he wants, but that desire comes with a painful twist of guilt in his chest. All the rationalizing and cataloguing of her offenses can’t stop that feeling.

But the gentle, encouraging weight that presses to his back helps. Bill’s chest is warm and solid where it presses against Eddie’s shoulder blade, and when he tilts his head to the side Bill lets him rest against him, even turns his face slightly into Eddie’s hair. He puts his hand on Eddie’s hip, settling around him naturally, and gives him an encouraging squeeze. Eddie wants to live in the comfort that gesture brings him for the rest of his life. And he thinks he might just be able to when Bill says in a voice both soft yet sure, “You can do it.” 

It’s the push Eddie needs. The hand reaching out to him, asking him to tag along, that smile and that feeling of sunshine that make Eddie feel like he can do anything. The reminder that wherever this decision takes him, he won’t be going there alone. Taking one last deep breath, he forces his finger down. He feels his breath leave him as letters cross the screen congratulating him. Then the smile pulls at his lips as Bill cheers behind him, wrapping his arms around Eddie’s middle. Eddie giggles and leans into it, feeling completely at home. Fuck, he’d do that a million more times if it meant Bill would keep holding him like this. Because as he looks at Bill, at the pride in his blue eyes, Eddie knows he’s safe. He can take those jumps. He can do it; Bill said it himself.

  
  


And he does it. New York isn’t easy, but it’s freedom. It’s that airborne feeling that scares him but excites him more. And while it certainly does a fine job on its own of dazzling him, what makes it feel like a home is the knowledge that Bill is just a short subway ride away. 

Bill has always felt like a reprieve from Sonia, but this is different. She finally, truly can’t reach them, not here. While it definitely is a relief, it also changes things in a way Eddie hadn’t expected. It makes the air around him and Bill crackle when they get too close. Eddie can’t stop his heart from racing around Bill, so loud he thinks it might be audible. And Eddie’s heart has always raced around Bill, this is nothing new—but it feels different now. There’s a possibility that wasn’t there before. This intimacy can go uninterrupted. It feels somehow both less and so much more fragile than before. What was once a fond fantasy now lies right in front of him every time Bill comes over to watch a movie, every time Eddie tells him he should stay the night because he doesn’t want Bill to get lost without him there to help him navigate the streets and subways Bill’s still getting used to.

Tonight’s one of those nights. Bill’s working on a writing assignment at Eddie’s desk while Eddie scrolls through his phone on his bed. He’s not necessarily finished with his homework, but he’s decided he’s intellectually unavailable after eight o’clock on Friday nights. 

He hears Bill sigh, but it sounds at least satisfied, if not excited. Just as Eddie’s turning his head to check in on him, Bill flops himself onto Eddie’s bed, their bodies brushing together in the small space. Their faces are nearly touching, so close he can feel Bill’s breath on his lips. But Bill doesn’t move, so Eddie doesn’t either. He barely dares to breathe, but finally he asks, “How’s it coming along?”

“Not bad,” Bill answers. His fingers brush against Eddie’s hip. Eddie can’t tell if it’s an accident or not, but neither of them move away. “Think I’ve got something pretty solid going.”

“You gonna let me read it this time?” Eddie asks with a teasing smile. 

Just as he always does, Bill looks down with a bashful grin on his face and a faint blush on his cheeks. Eddie loves the way he looks when he gets like this, all modest and embarrassed but clearly pleased with Eddie’s interest in his writing. “Maybe when it’s finished,” Bill mumbles, looking up at Eddie through his eyelashes.

“I thought you said a writer’s work is never finished.” Eddie cocks his eyebrow, and Bill rolls his eyes with a laugh.

“Well I guess you’ll never read it then!” he teases, getting on top of Eddie to playfully push at his shoulder. Eddie giggles, thrilled by the sight of Bill smiling above him, his hair flopping into his face, never doing what Bill wants it to do but always looking perfect anyway.

“Guess I’ll just have to come to the book signings with all the other fans,” Eddie jokes. “Think you’ll still remember me when you’re big and famous?” And it really is a joke, mostly. While the thought of losing Bill is a scary one, it’s not something he lets himself worry about too much. Bill’s too constant. He may be a bit of wildcard sometimes, but he’s never disappeared, not from Eddie. He makes Eddie feel sure he’ll always be there. Always there for him, always smiling at him. Right now his pink lips are pressed together and quirked into a wry smile, and Eddie can’t stop thinking about kissing them. He nearly gasps when Bill drops to his elbow, suddenly so much closer to Eddie, and strokes his free hand through Eddie’s hair. Eddie leans into it as slightly as he can, instinctively chasing the comfort that lies in the palm of Bill’s hand.

“You’re gonna do way bigger things than I am,” he tells Eddie with a soft smile. His eyes overflow with a sincerity that takes Eddie’s breath away. “It’s amazing, the way some things just come naturally to you.”

_ You’re amazing _ , Eddie wants to say. But his head always starts swimming when Bill talks to him like this. Bill compliments him a lot, but this feels more like praise, and Eddie can feel the warmth emanating from Bill’s body as it presses gently against his own, and he can smell Bill’s laundry detergent on his t-shirt. Eddie’s even worse than Bill is at accepting compliments like this, and he really doesn’t want to use words now. He wants to kiss Bill and never stop, wants to crawl into the core of the feeling of whatever’s happening between them right now and never leave.

In his head he can hear Bill’s voice:  _ you can do it _ .

So he does. It’s a little awkward at first, because he has to shift his weight up to reach Bill’s lips. But then Bill is leaning into it and gently lowering Eddie back down to his pillow as he does so. Bill’s hand feels so big as he cradles Eddie’s face, and Eddie can barely decide where he wants his hands. He wants to run them up Bill’s arms and shoulders, he wants them in his hair. He’s also got other stuff on his mind, like the way Bill’s lips feel against his, and how he pulls back for just a moment, hesitantly, like he wants to make sure this is actually happening but doesn’t want to stop kissing Eddie for even a second. They lock eyes for a moment, and Eddie feels so safe, even as his heart pounds at his chest. It’s that feeling of flying, of the risk paying off. The feeling he’s always had around Bill, but so much more concentrated now. It’s so strong he can barely breathe, much less talk. But thankfully, with a silent smile, Bill leans in again, his lips firm and sure against Eddie’s. Eddie dives headfirst into the feeling, and he’s eager to get lost in it for as long as he can, knowing Bill will be right there when he opens his eyes. 


End file.
